Just Say Yeth
by k4writer02
Summary: Neville feels like he lived 3 years in the 3 weeks between Easter and the Battle at Hogwarts. A story about filling time during a war. References Rilla of Ingleside


Title: Just Say Yeth

Author: Kate, k4writer02

Rating: PG-13

Fandom: Harry Potter

Summary: Neville feels like he lived 3 years in the 3 weeks between Easter and the Battle at Hogwarts. A story about filling time during a war.

Disclaimer: None of the characters or settings are mine. Playing in the universe—that's all.

A story written for Rosie (months ago) for her birthday. It didn't get posted till now because I forgot that even though I wrote it, I didn't get a chance to post it. And then I forgot I wrote it. I am very sorry.

Neville led Dumbledore's Army into hiding in the Room of Requirement, one by one. He's heard stories about another man, whose name also started with N, leading all manner of strange creatures to safety in a magic ark, two by two. That man got laughed at; Neville's punishment (if caught) would be worse.

He started leading them in after Halloween—just little afternoons or overnights for those who've been in detention. He continued in earnest after Easter holiday, Ginny's disappearance with her family, and the news about Gran.

Later in his life, he will be stunned by how long those three weeks from 12 April (Easter) to 2 May (the Battle at Hogwarts) felt. In his memory, they stretch on and on, so sometimes he's surprised to find himself where he is, instead of there, in the room, with those other students.

Ten years on, over pints in a backroom of the Leaky Cauldron, he will ask Seamus and Terry if it's possible that one of the Carrows had a time turner, possible that they lived three months in those three weeks. The other young men will look thoughtful, and finally declare it "improbable," though they will all agree it felt like it.

After Easter, he called on his (remaining) year mates of Dumbledore's Army to do more than sabotage. They smuggled in the highest risk younger students, but left the rest to the protection of McGonagall**, **Sprout and Filch—the trustworthy professors.

Dumbledore's Army covers the comings and goings with help from some ghosts and portraits and house elves who are friendly to the children. Some of the ghosts—especially Peeves—enjoy making a fuss that diverts attention elsewhere. The portraits develop a code to warn the students when the Carrows, Snape, and Filch are around. And the house elves. Neville finds himself blessing the odd little beings who know every hiding place in the fluid, twisting labyrinths of the school.

Working through the nights, by 14 April, all of those who are in need of shelter and protection are gathered in the Room of Requirement—Ravenclaws, Griffindors, Hufflepuffs, even two Slytherin who did not share their House's predilections toward aligning with the Carrows.

Neville's startled to realize that, in Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dean, Luna and Ginny's absences, he is de facto, the most experienced leader/warrior they have. The thought occurs to him while he is teaching the second year from Slytherin how to cast a silencing charm, and it makes him want to go sit in a corner and talk to Trevor's (nonexistent) replacement. Instead he crosses the room to check on Susan, who caught a poorly cast _Cruciatus_ in her last raid. Ernie and Terry rescued her—dragged her back to the room, throwing confounding charms and smoke sparklers like glitter.

Luna's frankly brilliant idea to ask Madame Pomfrey for extra medical supplies—for nargle bites and other emergencies, she had claimed, ever so innocently—paid dividends that longest April of all their lives.

Neville started the move with quiet words to sixth and seventh years, reasoning that once they were committed, they could help rescue the younger ones, who may or may not be members of the old DA, but still need protection. He was right about some students' willingness to help, and wrong about others. It's best to be right about those who are willing to help. He was right, instantly, about Seamus and Ernie MacMillan and Terry Boot. It's not so bad to be right about those who won't help—Padma Patil devised clever stratagems from the relative safety of Ravenclaw and later the Room of Requirement, but she wouldn't risk her neck after seeing Luna disappear off the train. He was not disappointed. Altogether, he felt clever to be right so often. It was a new feeling for him.

But he preferred to be wrong in some cases, like with Parvati. He thought she wouldn't want to go anywhere or help anyone after they rescued Padma and Lavender, added baths and toilets (the girls were extremely unimpressed by the facilities he thought adequate), and secured food. But she just pinned him with a glare and said simply, "I'm a Gryffindor too."

Oh, but being wrong was a bitter pill to swallow when sweet Hannah looked up through tear-stained lashes to whisper "I can't—I wish, but after the last detention… I'm not brave like that."

He had been counting on her to open Hufflepuff's sett, since she had managed to stay in the teachers' good graces better than Ernie or the rest of the Hufflepuffs from the DA. But his disappointment was not because Hannah showed cowardice (there'd be another way) but because they—he—didn't save her in time. She recovered, but Merlin, she was in worse shape than Susan, and they'd not even used an Unforgiveable on her.

Steady, sturdy Ernie became reckless and restless after Hannah's broken confession to Lavender about what Amycus allowed Crabbe to do with his wand in that last detention—vanished her clothes, left her standing in the cold dungeon in her knickers, while he leered and didn't touch (or so she says—they all have their doubts on that front). Ernie and Justin had been best friends, and they'd been competitors for Susan and Hannah's attentions. But Justin wasn't there that year, and Ernie'd failed both their girls.

Ernie and Hannah never managed to be an item. Looking at her, Ernie saw his failure to protect her. He didn't feel like a full man. Looking at him, Hannah saw a capacity for anger that terrified her. She didn't feel like a woman, but rather a victim.

Ernie's impotent rage wasn't helping, which even Neville could see, and he was thick as wood about girls' feelings. In fact, it was literally to the point where Hannah cowered when Ernie came within three feet of her. Neville felt new respect for Won-Won's one-time cuddle bunny when Lavender pulled Ernie aside, pushed him against the wall and said without even once becoming hysterical or giggly, "Either you stop scaring her or you leave."

Lavender may have been silly and prone to shrieking over things no one could help, but her hands were deft with bandages and healing spells. Her prattle actually put others at ease. And there was no denying that even the girls who she didn't get on with before that year relied on her after the detentions and punishments the Carrows doled out. Even Neville could be soothed by her cool palms. She earned trust, with sure hands and a soothing voice and easy empathy. Neville wondered if she was considering being a Mediwitch when this all ended, though it didn't often seem possible that it ever would end.

Plus, she probably didn't have the marks she'd need in Potions or Transfiguration and Charms. But who did these days?

After Lavender's ultimatum, Ernie chose to leave for the night. He returned shamefaced the next day, towing Colin Creevey whom he'd rescued from being a troll's supper. Being Muggleborn, the Creevey boys had not been welcome at school that year, but Colin had come anyway. He'd boarded in Hogsmeade, studying with tutors, since the magical world was the place he chose for his own, despite the dangers. In this moment of crisis, he'd joined them, like a true Gryffindor.

Over the days and weeks, Hannah gravitated toward Neville, who rarely shouted, and who was often busy enough that they could work side by side, easy companions in the relative quiet. In their first three days in the Room of Requirement, she discovered a facility for communicating with the house elves and Aberforth over at the Leaky Cauldron about food, drinks, sweets, sheets, towels and toys. She's always less fragile when she has a task, and when she's feeling competent.

Neville learned a lesson by watching that, and it inspired him to give everyone chores and tasks, from collecting trash to serving breakfast to foraging for supplies they can't ask for—things like tampons, which all the girls were too embarrassed to ask Aberforth for. The boys felt pretty much the same to an exponential degree. And what supplies the girls thought to bring with them ran out by the end of the first week. And oddly, though the room of requirement stocked toilet paper and soap, it didn't run to feminine products.

Some (most) of the students complained about chores, but Neville noticed that pointless bickering and sniping decreased significantly when they had something to DO. And from that, he got the idea that lessons should resume, after only six days of holiday in the Room. If you can call hiding and hushing and huddling in terror a "holiday." He asked the Ravenclaws first, who were enthusiastic. He put the older ones (especially the NEWT and OWL year students) to work 

tutoring the younger ones. It served as a review for them, and it took up time. They're all most interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course, and they don't have the supplies for some of the more involved potions or herbology classes.

Their transfiguration lessons were improvised at best. McGonagall spent the next six years lamenting the sloppiness of the techniques the older students taught the first years. But the real-world applications tested even the oldest students. They gave up on astronomy without a clear view of the night sky. They're embarrassingly ignorant when it comes to Muggle Studies. Arithmancy, ancient runes, and history of magic proceeded fairly well. They made do somehow. After the third day, they're even interested in History of Magic, because the way Terry tells it is interesting, more like stories than lessons.

Padma was the first to offer to share actual storybooks, their fourth night in the Room. She's teased lightly by members of other houses—trust a Ravenclaw to grab a book to go into hiding. But everyone was grateful when they start reading it aloud. They discovered a lot of unexpected talent—Seamus's voice has incredible range, and Lavender proved that years of histrionic behavior taught her exactly when to pause for maximum effect when telling a story. They finish that book in two nights, and work their way through other books people brought with them. Then they raid for more, but the library is so guarded that all they can get their hands on are books from the disused, forgotten Muggle Studies classroom. They leave with two decks of playing cards and six books: _A Little Princess_, _Little Women_, the _Diary of Anne Frank, Jane Eyre, Rilla of Ingleside_, and _Mansfield Park_. All of the books seem to be by, for, and about girls. All of them are older than Dumbledore. He looks around, expecting revolution from Ernie, perhaps, or Terry, who risked their necks for this (admittedly disappointing) contraband. But they were ignoring the proceedings, playing a hand of cards.

They didn't understand some of the descriptions of the stories, but one of the girls spent summers with Muggle grandparents. She was a shy third year who Neville barely knew; she resembled a marshmallow in personality and appearance. She's Alecto's favorite target in her year. She had never read any of them, but selected _Rilla of Ingleside_, explained "It should be the simplest to read; it's about a girl who lives at home, waiting for news, during a Great War. The first one."

Seeing that they were still baffled, she offered the sketch of a history lesson on two Great Wars, filled in a little by a Ravenclaw who took Muggle Studies for the easy grade, and corrected by Colin Creevey of all people.

Neville's a bit uneasy about the story—a girl waiting at home for news about a war doesn't sound like it will exactly take their minds off their troubles. But honestly, that's what half of the books are about, as far as he can tell.

The first year with Muggle grandparents blushed, "It's a love story, too."

And Lavender, Padma, Parvati and even Hannah (who hadn't been taking much interest in anything that day) started clamoring for it. Romance was running short in those conditions. It's hard to look handsome or beautiful in such close quarters, and there's little mystique left after 

you hear someone else's bodily functions. So romance was in short supply, but hormones and opportunities combined so that sex was in the very air.

And, well, there simply weren't convenient corners and closets for snogging, though when has that ever stopped sex addled teenagers? One of the most embarrassing moments Neville endured in those three weeks was stuttering his way through a speech about decency when Lavender and Terry emerged from the same toilet stall, clothes on differently than when they entered, Lavender's lipstick smeared on both their faces.

The girls liked the story in Rilla's book—Neville could see half of them falling in love with Walter, and the other half with Ken Ford. He seriously worried about them all when Walter dies—of course he was reading that chapter aloud, and he had to decide whether to stop or continue. Since Miss Oliver's fiancée was okay, he realized many of the girls expected Walter to turn up in the end, but Neville has a sick feeling that this was a death that meant "the end" in that story.

He kept reading, through Walter's last letter to Rilla and Una (Lavender was sniffling, maybe fancying herself a steadfast Una Meredith keeping faith with Ron's memory, which Neville found a bit silly, though he wouldn't say so), through insensitive Irene's insult of Rilla, to baby Jims' crisis and Mary Vance's heroic moment. Then, it's safe to put the book down. A few of the girls had been crying, and some looked frightened—if heroes in books could die, what did that mean for their war, their real war? He's telling himself he was stupid to ignore his own good sense when Hannah spoke to the criers, "Walter didn't die, you know. Not really."

The girls (and some boys who pretended not to listen) stared at her. They're staring because she hadn't talked to anyone other than Neville, Susan, and Lavender in three days and her voice is hoarse with disuse, but she thought they were interested so she continued, "I heard a story once, about a boy like that, who saw futures. Right, Lav? Didn't Professor Trelawney tell that story to you too?"

Lavender was blinking back crocodile tears, but she looked intrigued, and Parvati leaned closer while Hannah said, "There was a wizard. Well, he should have been one, but he didn't go away to school to learn, because his Island and poetry and mother could teach him more. School seemed too far away from his home in Canada. But he was so strong he had visions naturally, but he called them dreams. They all did—they didn't recognize visions for what they were. You can see that from Miss Oliver."

"He saw that he was supposed to die in France. But he didn't die; wizards came for him and healed him and covered him in an invisibility cloak. But as far as the Muggles knew…" Lavender trailed off suggestively.

"I remember now. He went to Beauxbatons." Parvati contributed, "When he was well enough to travel, he came to England, and learned not only formal divination, but herbology."

"Yes, he was like Neville, with plants," Hannah jumped back into the story telling.

"The very roots and leaves whispered secrets to him, about when they planned to bloom, and where." Lavender said, dramatically, "One day, they whispered to him about the Forest. Our Forest."

"It wasn't Forbidden then." Padma contributed. "Not to a man like that."

Hannah nodded. She smiled but the expression looked strange on her face, "Luna said he spoke with centaurs, rode thestrals, talked to hippogriffs, walked with unicorns and dreamed with the trees themselves. He may even have floated on the breath of the oaks to the stars, but that might be just a… a Luna thing. But it is true that he wandered the forest all the way to Hogwarts' gate. He gave the headmaster a book of poetry. And then he returned to Canada, to the islands and mountains and woods. He was always a little peculiar—men are, when plants and nature speak secrets to them. But he was always kind."

The others settled back, satisfied enough to respond to the prefects who sent them to bed, though one third-year lingered to ask, "Didn't he ever go home to his mother?"

"Yes." Hannah says, decisively, and the older students all remember her tragedy from sixth year, "That's why she didn't let anyone put on mourning for him. She was magical too."

Neville looks around at the girls, after the younger ones are settled. They're preparing to raid and irritate the authorities for the night. "Real story?" He asks. He wants to know if the doomed weakling, the one who'd been abandoned by the boys who fought the first part of that war, really had a second life in the magical world, without his steadfast blue-eyed Una.

"Real enough." Hannah whispered. Parvati and Lavender launched into some sentimental and detailed recounting of Trelawney's lessons, divination, and how it fit Walter's visions of the Piper, as told by LM Montgomery.

Their raid that night wasn't particularly memorable, but Neville got the idea to take a clipping from the Whomping Willow, to nurture it along as best they could, until he could plant a vicious little sapling in front of Snape's office door. They couldn't know that the war would be over before that plan could bear fruit.

Neville let Parvati read the next chapters before lessons the next day, and then Lavender had a turn, then Padma. And so it goes, in fits and spurts during breaks, until, before they know it, the story is almost done. On 1 May, Hannah had an attack of shyness when it's her turn, but they beg her to read the last chapter. She blushed badly when she said the last word of the book—"Yeth." She closed the book with a snap.

Neville wondered if he imagined the way her eyes sought his out. He realized he wasn't imagining it at all when he looked at the book and saw she left off the real end. It should have concluded, "'Yeth,' said Rilla." But Hannah ended it with that lonely "yeth."

Hannah had never lisped around him, but Neville couldn't help feeling she was saying 'yeth' to him.

The question was—what did he offer that she accepted?

He held tight to that affirmation, all through the next day, and the battle, and checking bodies—injured? Dead?

The losses stung and ached and burned and pained him. Still sting and ache and burn, to tell the truth. Always will.

Fred, Professor Lupin and his wife and Colin are gone forever, along with fifty others. Fifty. The magical community is small—Neville knew many of those fifty, and their absences leave gauges and rents and tears in the fabric of society in Wizarding Britain. There's barely a family left untouched.

The children he hid are mostly well, protected as they were in the towers. He finds himself regretting the sixth and seventh years who fought. Lavender will possibly recover, but her injuries are very serious, and she will always be a bit feeble—even in the best case, her hands will not be steady enough to be a Mediwitch. A residual tremor will make her wand work just a bit too unsteady for something that delicate. She seems content to be a Welcome Witch at the hospital, and to sell cosmetics on the side, but Neville regrets and resents that so many futures were taken in a single day.

He devotes his life to futures—what else is teaching, if it's not investing in the future? What is surviving worth, if you don't live like a better tomorrow will come? He asks Hannah one night. It is long before she's bought the Leaky Cauldron and long after graduation. It's in the period when she's the barmaid Hogwarts boys pant over.

Hannah shrugs, but she smiles at him. She puts down the rag she's using to wipe the bar. She leans forward. Her breasts are pressed together, and that's so distracting he barely notices she's leaning closer until the kiss lands on his mouth.

And without meaning to do it (not that night!), a question pops out of his mouth. He doesn't have a ring to offer her, but she says yes anyway. They take the stone from her mother's ring, and the gold from the band of his mother's ring and hire a jeweler to make a new one. They fuse their two pasts into a differently shaped whole. Neville rather likes the symbol, that two pasts come together to make a beautiful thing no one has seen before. What else is a family, after all, but two people who leave their past and merge together, taking the best of each, stirring well, and making a future?

He and Hannah take hold of their tomorrows, maybe with hands that tremble and voices that show the strain. But they take them. They say yeth to each other, to Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, to the future.

They live happily ever after.


End file.
